GPS blunders see Lourdes pilgrims travel to village of Lourde

Blind faith in the wonders of GPS is causing a growing number of Catholic pilgrims in France to stray from the right path.

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The tiny village of Lourde

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The shrine in LourdesPhoto: ALAMY

Henry Samuel in Paris

9:00PM BST 04 Aug 2010

A small, but rising portion of the six million pilgrims who flock to the world's third most visited Catholic shrine in Lourdes are showing up at another, rather less well-known village called Lourde.

Their sin was to have misspelled the name of their destination on their satellite navigational system.

New arrivals to the tiny hamlet in the Pyrenean foothills south of Toulouse are understandably confused, as not only does the village contain no Marian shrine, nor does it offer a single hotel or shop. Indeed, finding a baguette in the near vicinity would be nothing short of a miracle.

Lourde's 94 residents are now getting used to redirecting bemused drivers, who have strayed 57 miles west of their intended destination, as they crawl forlornly through the village in search of the holy site's familiar trinket shops and stretcher bearers.

"They are all surprised to see that Lourde[s] is so small; they ask you about the underground caves," one village councillor told French radio today.

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"One day, a hearse showed up," Robert Amblard, village mayor, said. "The driver stopped in front of the map. I advised him to have a look in the 65 [Haute-Pyrenees department] instead."

Ironically, Lourdes only added the "s" in the mid-19th century, while its tiny "competitor" dropped its "s" relatively recently.

For more than a century, since Lourdes turned into a huge pilgrimage point, residents of Lourde have become accustomed to showing lost travellers the correct path to what they hope will be salvation.

But GPS, they say, has increase the number of those going astray.

"For two years now ... more and more people are getting it wrong. We have Spaniards, Dutch, Belgians and of course French people. It's proof that they can't use technology," said one local resident.

"Yesterday twenty turned up," another said.

Some pilgrims do not question the curiously quiet destination; it has been known for pilgrims to mistake the village's small statue of the Virgin Mary with the Statue of Our Lady at the Grotto of Massabielle, and gravely light candles at her feet.

Despite the growing mix-ups, the hamlet's residents see no reason why they should change their name. "We've already removed the 's', what are we supposed to do now, remove the 'l','o' and 'u'?" asked one local. Besides, she added, "Even without an 's', we are still a nice village."

As for those prepared to cast the first stone at GPS, one municipal councillor offered a word of wisdom: "The GPS is not at fault, people are."